Chute Jumping
by bio-hazard32
Summary: Turaga Dume lightens up and goes off to break one of his own laws.


**Author's Note: I'm a newbie, so don't cannibalize me.**

**----------------------------**

Turaga Dume sighed and leaned back in his throne-like chair. He felt old and worn, like an overused Kanoka disk launcher. Sending the Toa Nuva on this new and dangerous mission hadn't helped him either. It helped the other Turaga less. If the Toa Nuva were killed… _Don't dwell on it._ Those four grim words followed him like an obstinate energy hound. Or more like the "Ten-thousand Madu fruit on a Tree" song that drove you and everyone in your vicinity completely nuts.

"There it is again," Dume growled as the annoying song barged into his mind, loud and incredibly off-key. He shook his head as if to rid his ears of water, and leaned further back in his chair, which was as worn as he felt,) and perused a document from some Onu-Metru archivists, who had expressed their doubts in long paragraph form about their concerns about the Bohrok they discovered a thousand years ago and the damage they might cause if krana somehow entered them

_Might. If. Somehow. Worried about something going on above our heads that won't hurt us. In fact, it's supposed to happen._

Someone overly-empathetic like Vakama or Whenua would have visited the matoran and comforted them in person, but Dume rapidly wrote a snappy letter, telling them not to worry and get back to work. He called his messenger, Tasfri, and told him to deliver the letter. Dume leaned back further still, and this time fell out of his chair.

As Dume picked himself up, he heard someone enter the room. "Are you alright, Turaga?" asked Takanuva.

"I'm fine," said Dume, quietly and bitterly. "Can I help you?" Immediately, he felt guilty for snapping at Takanuva, (who looked slightly hurt) but his pride did not permit him to apologize.

"Some Onu-Matoran-"

"Yes, I know about their Bohrok concerns," Dume snapped.

"No. There have been reports of an odd creature in the Archives."

"That's a _huge_ surprise," the Turaga remarked sarcastically.

"They say it's loose, and I just thought I'd tell you before I investigate."

The red Turaga sniffed as the white and gold Toa exited the chamber, and then went back to his desk, pondering what to do next. Chances were, if the matoran had upcoming complaints, they would refer to one of the other Turaga. Similarly to Ko-matoran, Dume was uninviting, and bordered on rude. _I need to relax,_ he found himself thinking. _Dume, you're losing your grip. Remember your rule on wistful pondering. None._

He closed his eyes, and breathed in deep. _Remember your technique. Let loose your opinion._

Vakama was about to knock on Dume's door when he heard, "Send those thoughts to Karzahni, and do something to entertain yourself!" Vakama backed away from the door. He would never ask Dume about politics again.

Dume released his breath and grinned. He was feeling better already. Now, he had to do something to make himself feel young again. When he was a young Toa, he was very rule free and reckless. His thoughts drew back to reality and he realized the vastness of the damage his irresponsibility might do to Metru-Nui. He created laws for a reason. _But if…_As he suddenly saw by Le-matoran standards- rules were made to be broken.

Dume exited the coliseum and headed to Le-Metru. As there was an Akilini competition going on, his exit was broadly noticed, and he soon attracted a large crowd. The whole city in fact.

Vakama was sitting at a table with the other Turaga, tapping his hand on the worn surface at a steady staccato rhythm. "The weirdest thing happened to me today," he said, frowning and tapping his hand more intensely, but none of the others were paying any attention. The other five Turaga suddenly got up and dashed over to the windows with as much speed as each could muster.

"Why is Dume lead-guiding the matoran to the Silver Sea?" Matau queried.

"We'd better stop him before he drowns them all or leads them into Karzahni," Onewa replied.

"Let's get-find Takanuva in case Dume is mood-feeling homicidal _again_," Matau muttered. "Remember last time?"

The Turaga rushed toward the door, and hopped onto a near-by Moto-sled that was to be taken downstairs via elevator. "Matau, don't you dare-" began Nokoma, but her words were lost to the wind as Matau gunned the engine and shot down the hallway and dramatically out the twentieth-story window. Nuju barely kept the sled and the other Turaga intact by activating his mask before they could create a ten foot deep crater in the ground. He also perfectly expressed his great annoyance with a few well-chosen clicks and a shrill twitter.

"Glad-happy I don't know what you meant-said," Matau said happily as they rode down the street. "Otherwise, I'd have to run over-squash you with the sled."

Nuju clicked again.

"Tamaru, where are the best chutes for chute-jumping?" Turaga Dume asked, squinting as he and the rest of the Metru-Nui population passed through the Moto-Hub.

"Well, for newbie-beginners there is a tiny-small chute over there," Tamaru began. "It is ideal-perfect because it is low-short off the ground in case your timing is off, so if you fall-drop, you're not chute-bones." The lime-green matoran started talking faster as he got more nervous. It felt odd explaining to a Turaga where to break the law and why it was best there.

"Then, there is Chute 812, a little larger-bigger and faster-swifter moving, but you get a bad-nasty glare in the afternoon." Tamaru cleared his throat for the theatrical suspense. "Finally-last, there is the Master-Best Chute. Tall-high off the ground, and too speedy-fast for Orkahm's want-wish."

"Would you recommend it?" Turaga Dume curiously asked, a funny and unusual gleam in his eye.

"N-no," Tamaru stuttered. "Too tall-high for my tastes."

"I'll try it," Dume said, practically vibrating with energy.

"What!? But what about the Vahki!? What if there is a Chute break-down or an accident-mistake!?"

"Who cares!?" Dume yelled, cackling maniacally.

"Faster, faster," Vakama muttered. The Turaga and  
Takanuva had been speeding through the streets toward Le-Metru for the past half-hour.

"Faster, Matau!"

"But we're going too speedy-fast already!" Matau yelled, his face strained with nerves. "I'll wreak the sled and whatever I hit-smash into!"

Turaga Dume inhaled deeply, and looked down. Big mistake. He struggled to keep his balance as a gust of wind threatened to push him off the edge of the building he was standing on. He could feel the wind twist around his feet at the high altitude. The wind had a smell that he couldn't quite place. There was a high pitched whistle riding on the wind, and he could hear the matoran chanting his name. He gazed down, taking in the color of all the happy little matoran faces, all different colors. Red, blue, black, brown, white, green, gold.

Gold? There was only one person that had a Toa sized gold mask. Takanuva! And belong side him… The other Turaga! They were trying to stop him! _From what? Chute jumping? Oh, they think I'm committing suicide._

Down below, the Toa of Light and the six Turaga was shoving their way through the crowd. Takanuva stopped and asked a Ta-Matoran named Aft a question. "What is Turaga Dume doing?" the golden Toa demanded.

"He's chute jumping, but I think there are some Vahki up there that might cause him some trouble."

Takanuva looked up. They were not Vahki, exactly. There was a squad of half a dozen Kranua up there, ready to subdue Turaga Dume. Kranua were a specialized kind of Vahki. They could transmute their bodies into animated grains of protodermis and could effectively trap the Turaga literally inside themselves by turning into sand, and reforming around the Turaga. This was an effective way of trapping criminals without doing any damage. Turaga Dume was in trouble, and Takanuva was no-where near.

"What are you waiting for?" yelled Matau. Takanuva jumped, but Matau wasn't talking to him. He was talking to Dume. But Matau's words had an impact on Vakama. A series of scenes and emotions flittered through him.

_How he felt when Makuta had branded them as criminals, under the guise of Dume. The fear of the Dark Hunters when they had chased him, Nokoma, and Matau. Matau pushing off a ledge and into a chute. Finding the other Toa after they had broken out of the Dark hunter's prison. Realizing Lhikan was a Turaga. Lhikan's death. Finding his mask power._

"None of this is relevant to what's going on now," Vakama muttered. "Don't dwell on it."

A gasp rose up from the crowd as well as some groans when Turaga Dume walked away from the edge and toward the Kranua. Then several streaks shot off the edge of the roof: the first red, the rest a bland, sandy color. Dume had simply stepped back for a running start, and the elite Vahki thought he was surrendering. Dume somersaulted through the air three times and entered the chute performing a perfect swan dive. The Kranua weren't so lucky. They had entered the liquid protodermis in sand form, so when they were filtered out, they were just globs of mud.

Days later, Turaga Dume was more calm and patient with the letters he received from the matoran. But his old bad mood had seemed to spread among the other Turaga. As he passed by Vakama's office once, he heard something like, "Drop it out the window and run over it". Dume swore he would never do that to a cat. And days later, while he was looking over a document from Ga-Matoran about the Great Temple's restoration, and he thought he heard someone pass by his office. Dume got up and looked down the hall, and could swear that Vakama had just left his room to go chute jumping.

**Well. That's finally finished. Also, I made up Tasfri the messenger, so please don't use that name. Again, I'm new, so don't give me scathing reviews, please.**


End file.
